Is Sofia Kenin Really Back?

BY JAMES BECK

Sofia Kenin is a true veteran of professional tennis.

She’s just 24 years old, but she has been playing the pros for a decade.

Kenin was so great in 2020 when you won the Australian Open after celebrating her 21st birthday three months earlier. Then she moved up to No. 4 in the world and was runner-up in the French Open.

The world must have looked simple back then to the Moscow native, who came to America as a baby.

INJURIES STEAL 2021 AND 2022

Then the injuries hit, and 2021 and 2022 weren’t as much fun.

But Kenin is back in Charleston for the Charleston Open ranked No. 142 in the world. She struggled at times Monday night before the rains pushed the finish back to Tuesday, and she prevailed with a 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-1 win over Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus.

Kenin had played late into the night on Monday and was lucky to be winning when the match was finally called. She could sleep easy.

“I needed to get some sleep if I wanted to win,” she said during her Tennis Channel interview Tuesday after winning her first-round match in Charleston.

SPEECHES NO PROBLEM FOR KENIN

The home-schooled young woman was as articulate as ever.

After winning the 2020 Australian Open, Kenin started her acceptance speech by saying, “Okay, this is my first speech, but I’m going to try my best.”

Her speech was so well articulated that day that tennis hall of famer Todd Woodbridge, who was serving as master of ceremonies for the Australian Open’s awards presentation, said, “I think we’ll all agree it was a pretty special first Grand Slam speech.”

A DIFFERENT PLAYER ON TUESDAY

Kenin looked like a different player, her old self, when the match resumed Tuesday as she quickly expanded a 3-0 lead from the previous night to 5-0. Her strong, precisely placed cross-court backhands became more than Sasnovich could handle.

The match ended quickly.

Six years earlier out on the Althea Gibson Club Court, she was wrapping up things by autographing everything her young fans could come up with. She had qualified for the main draw of what was then named Volvo Car Open.

FROM NOWHERE TO SUPERSTAR

From a nearby seat in the stands, her coach/dad Alex watched every move that day in 2017, just as he did Monday and Tuesday in Credit One Stadium on Daniel Island.  Veteran coach Michael Joyce also is helping out her dad these days.

But in 2017, Kenin was on her way from “nowhere to superstar” as the 210th-ranked player in the world.

It happened in 2020 when she won the Australian Open and then was runner-up in the French Open. She quickly became the highest ranked American in professional tennis and the youngest American to win a Grand Slam since Serena Williams in the 2002 U.S. Open.

INJURIES TAKE OVER IN 2021 AND 2022

The world seemed to belong to the then 21-year-old. She was young and a great talent apparently capable of winning many Grand Slam tournaments.

Then the injury season hit her in 2021. A serious ankle injury sidelined her for five months in 2022. She missed the Olympics. She also came down with Covid.

Everything seemed to go wrong.

It had been a bumpy ride for a player who started playing the ITF Circuit in 2013 in Gainesville, Fla., as a 14-year-old. The young woman from Pembroke Pines, Fla., may finally be back on her game with a healthy body.

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James Beck was the 2003 winner of the USTA National Media Award  for print media. A 1995 MBA graduate of The Citadel, he can be reached at Jamesbecktennis@gmail.com.

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